Pippa Latour was told she only had a 50/50 chance of coming home, but she chose to parachute into Nazi-occupied Normandy during the Second World War as an undercover agent anyway.
Thanks to her fluency in languages and her coding abilities, Pippa was trained by the British and sent undercover into France. She was 23 years old and as a cover story she posed as a 14-year-old selling soap to help her grandparents survive. A small slip of a thing, she was believable in her role, and her cover story enabled her to travel around on her bicycle, selling soap to German soldiers and sending information back to England via code.
Pippa was in constant danger, and she was living rough, foraging for food and mainly sleeping on in the forest at nighttime. She concealed her codes in a shoelace that she wore as hair tie, and she knew she would be executed if her cover was blown.
This book is so tense, I found myself frantically turning the pages, almost holding my breath in places. And just when you think it couldn’t be more dangerous, there was absolute chaos after the landings at D-Day, where death was all around, and feels like a miracle that Pippa survived.
This is an astonishing, real-life story of unbelievable bravery. Pippa never told her family about her exploits, but thanks to Jude Dobson’s care in writing, her legacy is preserved for future generations. The Last Secret Agent is truly remarkable.
Karen McMillan
Allen & Unwin